


... Love

by raiyana



Series: A Question of... [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Erestor before he's Erestor, Gen, Growing up in Angband, Half-Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23855140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiyana/pseuds/raiyana
Summary: Thuringwethil's wish has been granted, to an extent... and Gwindor discovers a surprising strength of feeling in himself.
Relationships: Finduilas Faelivrin/Gwindor, Gwindor & child!Erestor
Series: A Question of... [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1583737
Kudos: 11





	... Love

“Atto,” he said, tearing Gwindor’s heart into bleeding wounds, the boy’s smile so very like his own, despite the pallor of his skin and the eyes that burned with a hunger food couldn’t sate.

And still he could never deny that the child who looks at him with such trust is his son.

“Rívornig,” he greeted, knowing why he had been sought out – once, it had been the servants of Gorthaur who came to him, bringing him to their cruel master, but he finds the boy equally compelling – seeing the smile bloom again on the small face as he bent to pick up his son with the familiar feeling of combined recognition and grief.

His son.

But not by the mother who should have borne him.

And not born of love, either.

And still he did love him; the innocent soul born of horror beyond comprehension.

His son, strange and separate from himself, and yet the same, echoes of the past reborn into the new.

“Tell me a story?” Rívorn – he had different names, but Gwindor would not think of them – said, the hopeful look on his face softening the words from being a command.

“A story, hmm?” Gwindor hummed, bouncing him gently to make him laugh. “Perhaps I shall tell you of my true home, little one,” he added, because Rívorn loved those stories best, wanting to know about life outside this dark place.

It gave Gwindor hope, unvoiced except in his deepest thoughts, that the boy would not be the instrument of death he was created to be.

“Nargothrond,” Rívorn replied, drawing out the name like a tasty treat. “Is it true the King has golden hair?” Very few here – even those who were Elves, once, before they greyness of thraldom settled upon them – have golden hair.

“Finrod Felagund did indeed have very golden hair,” Gwindor told him, tugging gently on one of the boy’s black locks; not as starkly dark as Thuringwethil’s, as though Gwindor’s brown hair had softened the colour slightly.

Rívorn laughed, the happy sound at odds with their bleak surroundings. Gwindor almost smiled at him for that, feeling the oppressive malice of the mines lifted from his spirit for a moment.

But then the moment ended, and Rívorn’s dark eyes were studying him keenly once more.

“Tell me about the Dancing Princess, Atar,” he asked, and Gwindor had but to close his eyes, seeing again that lightness of foot and the golden hair blowing in the breeze; the opposite of the boy’s mother in all ways.

“Finduilas…” he murmured, lost in thought. “ _Faelivrin_.” _My love…_

Rívorn squirmed slightly, breaking through the illusions of the past and Finduilas was naught but a memory once more.

Gwindor smiled at him, keeping the sadness from his face by the sheer power of his will – broken, like his body, though not crushed, yet, for which he felt grateful to the little boy on his lap. Sliding down the wall to sit on the ground, part of him grateful for the chance to rest his bones for a moment, he settled Rívorn in his lap, those dark eyes ready to soak up every word Gwindor would spare.

She danced whenever she could, even just walking down the corridors; Finduilas’ grace was her mother’s reborn, they said, though Gwindor thought it was all her own, too, as light as the sunlight trapped in her hair.

Faelivrin, he had named her, for her hair as well as her grace, and many a night was spent in her arms, dancing until the musicians begged off.

They were happy days, despite the threats from the north and the grief that lingered upon their hearts after the death of their beloved King… or so Gwindor had realised in the depths of dark Angband.

At the time he had not appreciated how much he loved her, though he had found himself calling her name for courage in the days and years since his capture.

“She would have been your mother,” Gwindor began, because they had wanted that, together, despite the darkness and the threat of war; when he returned from the battle, they would be wed, and Gwindor had no doubt that his Faelivrin would have made him a father not long after. “And taught you to dance in the crystal-studded ballroom; the ceiling there sprouts with quartz crystal, reflecting the light of many lamps until the brilliance is nearly dazzling… but not as dazzling as Finduilas, I say.”

“Emil dances, too,” Rívorn mused, “but only when she wears her wings – but she says I cannot have wings.” He frowned, aware of the injustice, though too used to Thuringwethil’s callousness to mark the slight beyond that.

“Thuringwethil _flies_ ,” Gwindor told him, “but flight is not dancing; when you dance, you fill your heart with the joy of the music, spinning yourself into the weave of a song until you feel it in every part of you… that’s what Finduilas excelled at.”

“Do you…” Rívorn rarely hesitated – he might like Gwindor’s company, but he was in no doubt that even he was so much higher than a thrall in the hierarchy of things that such things as bashfulness would never even cross his mind. “Do you think she would have me call her Ammë?”

Gwindor nodded, unable to speak.

The boy on his lap nodded too, as though they had sealed a deal, settling against Gwindor’s bony chest with a happy sound.

Gwindor had given him words for parents in the tongue of his own father, as well as in his mother’s language, and for a moment he wondered what they might say to see him like this, trying to be a father to a child he had not wanted until he had been born, had loathed since before he was ever conceived yet now thought the most precious thing in his world.

If not for Rívorn, Gwindor thought he might have sought to escape.

But to escape would not only mean leaving the boy to the tender mercies of Thuringwethil and Gorthaur, but also kill any hope he harboured that he had not fathered a monster. Gwindor’s arms tightened around his small body, conjuring up tales of light and laughter he’d almost forgotten existed, until the heavy weight told him his son was fast asleep.

He continued to hum small snatches of lullabies as the child slept.

Rívorn was no monster.

Not yet, at least.


End file.
